PATNA, Oct. 30 -- All the mainstream political parties - JD(U), RJD and the BJP - seem to be fighting on two fronts this election - one is on the electoral front and the other on the front created by rebels. A day after JD(U) expelled 16 of its legislators, RJD expelled 37 for activities allegedly against the party and official candidates of the alliance. Both the expulsions include legislators, former legislators as well as senior leaders and MLCs. BJP has also expelled six of its rebel leaders, including Kahalgaon MLA Pawan Yadav, but the top leaders have been engaged in firefighting measures on several seats, including in Patna. "Irrespective of the posturing in the public, it is clear that they have all started feeling the pressure more from within than outside, with a large number of leaders getting expelled, who were potential candidates, but failed to secure party tickets. But what we know is of identified troublemakers only. There may be many invisible working at cross purposes and they could prove more dangerous to make or mar prospects," said social analyst NK Choudhary. There is, however, no such problem in the smaller parties or new entrants, though some candidates of the Jan Suraaj Party (JSP) have just withdrawn from the electoral fray, allegedly under pressure. While Kishor blamed it on the BJP, the latter said it was their own doing. What is significant this time is that all the mainstream parties went in for large-scale change in seats, with new faces replacing old ones. BJP has changed 16 old faces and given tickets to 10 new faces, while JD(U) went in for 24 new faces and LJP(R) also fielded 10 new candidates out of its 29 candidates. HAM-VIP also have a fair share of independent candidates. "In NDA, some changes were necessitated by seat swapping among the NDA constituents, while some older players were changed apparently to beat anti-incumbency against them, but in the modern era when candidates mean little and election is fought predominantly on the charisma of leaders, it is never easy. There is always anti-incumbency against the ruling dispensation," said Choudhary. In the INDIA bloc, however, its CM face Tejashwi Prasad Yadav had to battle a lot of internal bickering in the beginning, but it went for whole hog change, which resulted in the opposition alliance fielding around 60 new candidates, replacing the old guard. RJD gave tickets to a maximum 31 new faces, while Congress has fielded 10 and Left parties seven. In the Kosi-Seemanchal region and eastern Bihar, which includes districts like Bhagalpur, Kishanganj, Araria and Banka, the INDIA bloc has gone in for major changes. "This election has a fair degree of unpredictability about it due to a number of factors, the prime being that no party seems confident by dint of its work or policy to attract the masses. Another factor is the emergence of JSP as a third alternative to alter the equation, not necessarily by winning but by simply giving the people devoid of choices for he past three and half decades something different to ponder over," said DM Diwakar, former director of AN Sinha institute of Social Studies. Diwakar said the third factor was the Opposition's pointed attack on CM Nitish Kumar as a spent force to create fissures in the minds of his supporters, which was not so fierce in 2020 when he had started showing signs of ageing and even expressed it in election meeting that he could be fighting his last election. "But the reality in a democracy is the numbers and he got just as much despite odds to remain indispensable. He still remains the best bet in Bihar politics and that is what brings him under Opposition attack. But in Assembly elections, the margin of error is thin, as 2020 statistics shows when 40 seats were by less than 4,000 votes," he added....